THE ENGLISH TEST OF MONOGAMY	305
cohabit as man and wife for the rest of their lives. The possibi-
lity of a later divorce cannot affect the character of their original
intention*
Secondly, the lex loci celebrationis as such has nothing to do
with the question of divorce, which is a matter solely for the
law that happens to be the lex domicilii of the parties at the time
of the suit. This may well be different from the law that
governed the celebration of the marriage. Pressed to its logical
conclusion, therefore, the argument that the original nature of
a union depends inter alia upon its dissolubility seems to in-
volve the manifestly absurd requirement that other laws with
which the parties may later form a domiciliary connexion, i.e.
all laws in the world, must also be considered. In Nachimson v.
Nachimson z1
The issue, which arose in a suit for judicial separation, was whether
a marriage, contracted at Moscow between two domiciled Russians
according to Russian law, constituted a marriage in the eyes of English
law. Russian law, until it was altered in 1944, regarded a marriage as
terminable at the will of either party. If both parties desired a divorce
they were entitled to demand that it should be registered by the appro-
priate official. If one of ±e spouses desired a divorce against the wishes
of the other, judicial proceedings had to be instituted, but even so it
was the duty of the judge to pronounce a decree of dissolution, pro-
vided that the wishes of the petitioner were formally declared.
The Court of Appeal held that notwithstanding the facility with
which a divorce was obtainable the union possessed the essen-
tial legal characteristics of a valid marriage, since the law under
which it was contracted envisaged its indefinite continuance.
This decision corrects the anachronistic view, expressed, for
instance, in Hyde v. Hyde? that in English law a marriage must
be a Christian marriage in the strict sense understood by the
Western Church. Since the original doctrine of the Church was
that marriage was dissoluble only by death, it followed that the
parties must have contracted a union for their joint lives. The
doctrine of non-dissolubility, however, has long been aban-
doned by English law, and the only Christian characteristics
now demanded are that a marriage should be monogamous,
and that it should be a union for life in the sense of not being
limited in duration. It is a Christian marriage according to
English law if it is potentially for life.
1	[1930] P- 217-
2	(1866), L.R. i P.&D. 130.
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